Obama to New York: Drop dead.
That was the message Team Obama sent — loud and clear — yes terday in slashing anti-terror funding for the city.
But what do you expect?
The local congressional reps — Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer and Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, etc. — have been such lapdogs for President Obama (at New York’s expense), why wouldn’t his team feel free to hang the city out to dry?
Under the plan, the feds will slice Gotham-area funds for transit and port security by $53 million — 27 percent.
Never mind what happened less than two weeks ago — when a terrorist parked a ticking bomb smack in the heart of Times Square.
Never mind that the city suffered far more than anywhere else on 9/11 — and today remains Target No. 1 for jihadists.
The Times Square attack — if not the plots against local subways, bridges, synagogues, you name it — should have reminded Obama & Co. where to set up its first line of defense. (Hint: It’s not Pascagoula, Miss., which will get $1 million in port-security funding alone.)
Nor is there any doubt that terrorist operations aimed at New York are as broad-based as they are deadly. Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, for example, says he was trained in far-off Pakistan.
And yesterday, FBI agents raided sites in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maine in connection with Shahzad’s attack. (Three people were arrested, though it wasn’t clear if any played an active role in the Times Square plot. )
Obviously, local counterterror efforts require money.
And since attacks on New York are meant to hurt the whole nation, Washington has a duty to provide it.
Certainly the city’s congressional delegation has an obligation to fight for it.
Yet Gillibrand, Schumer, Nadler & Co. have become so ineffective, Team Obama apparently thinks it can get more political mileage by spreading funds around.
Sure, Schumer griped about the funding, for whatever that was worth. (Mayor Bloomberg was so worried, he tried to personally get Obama to change course.)
How ironic: These Dems are supposed to have some sway over their party-mates in the White House. Yet Team Obama is taking New York for granted — and New York’s reps seem helpless to do much about it.
Which makes you wonder: What good are they to New York, anyway?